Pubdate: Thu, 03 Apr 2003
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2003 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Section: Obituaries
Author: Paul Lewis
Note: As noted in the obit, Bishop Dennis was especially involved in issues 
concerning
individual rights and served on the board of NORML.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/racial.htm (Racial Issues)

BISHOP WALTER DENNIS, 70, TOP AIDE IN EPISCOPAL DIOCESE, IS DEAD

Walter Decoster Dennis, a retired suffragan bishop for the Episcopal 
Diocese of New York, as well as a lawyer and a civil rights advocate, died 
on Sunday in Hampton, Va. He was 70.

The cause was an embolism, the diocese announced.

When elected suffragan bishop, or principal aide to the bishop, in 1979, 
Bishop Dennis was the second African-American to fill that post in the 
200-year history of the diocese, the diocese said.

After graduating from Virginia State University, New York University and 
General Theological Seminar, Bishop Dennis was ordained a deacon in 1956.

That same year he was the first African-American clergyman to be hired full 
time by the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Manhattan.

 From 1960 to 1965, he served as vicar of St. Cyprian's Episcopal Church in 
Hampton, Va., while also teaching as an adjunct professor of constitutional 
law and American history at Hampton University. During his ministry, St. 
Cyprian's became a stopover point for church members heading south in the 
desegregation fight.

He returned to St. John the Divine as a canon residentiary in 1965 and 
became involved with racial and social issues. He was a founding member of 
the Union of Black Episcopalians and of the Guild of St. Ives, an 
association of Episcopal clergy members and lawyers who gave legal advice 
to the poor over matters of church concern.

After becoming suffragan bishop, he was especially involved in issues 
concerning individual rights. Bishop Dennis served on the boards of Planned 
Parenthood, the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity and the 
National Association for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

He was born in Washington on Aug. 23, 1932. He retired in 1998 and moved 
back to Hampton, Va. He had no immediate survivors.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jackl